


Not In The Stars

by nirejseki



Series: Coldwave AUs [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding your soulmate can be a tricky business, even with a hint. </p>
<p>(Coldwave Week 2016 Day 6: Soulmates)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not In The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: this is a soulmate fic written by someone who doesn't really get soulmate fic, so I wrote it in 3 sections of exactly 400 words because predestination

Len sometimes wondered if the world would be a better, easier place if everyone had their soulmate’s name on their wrist, instead of some lucky people getting a name and the rest of the poor bastards getting stuck with some vaguely worded hint that destiny saw fit to bestow on you. It would presumably reduce the number of people ending up in the wrong relationship, wouldn’t it? He was pretty sure his mom had married his dad on the basis of him fitting her descriptor term, and look where that ended up. She’d never even shown him her word before she ran off on them, presumably on the same old search to find someone who matched her better.

He’d decided fairly early on that he wasn’t going to make that mistake. Of course, at age ten, he’d thought that he should just never date anyone, ever. He discarded that option pretty quickly once puberty kicked in and he realized that he was surrounded by hordes of attractive people who, should he play his cards right, might be willing to sleep with him. Sex was _awesome_. That still didn’t mean he was going to make his mom’s mistake and hook up for life with the first asshole who fit the criteria fate or biology or whatever had given him. He was going to pick someone that he actually liked. No matter the stories you heard in the media about the predestined bad ends that happened to people who hooked up outside their destinies. Even if he, like everyone else, kinda liked the idea of meeting someone who was going to be the one who was just right for him.

Not that it mattered; _Heatwave_ didn’t even make sense as a criteria. Was it going to be really hot when he met his soulmate? If the talking heads on TV were right, global warming would take care of that soon enough and then every year would be hot. It didn’t help that Len _hated_ hot weather; Lisa pointed out several times that he was never going to meet his other half if he spent every heat wave inside the house worshipping the air conditioner. 

She had a valid point, but anyone who was dumb enough to be outside when the thermometer broke 100 wasn’t someone he could see himself making a life with anyway. He’d find someone one day. He wasn’t worried.

\------------

By the time he was nearing forty, the age most people started panicking about whether they’d found the right soulmate or if they hadn’t found one yet, the same age his mother had decided that she was done trying with his dad and decided to ditch the whole lot of them, he had someone he liked already. Mick was a pyro; that had to be close enough, right? Not everyone had something as obvious as _inventor_ , thanks Lisa. Not that it seemed to help her; she still hadn’t found the right one yet, but she was having a hell of a good time looking. 

He didn’t give a damn about what fate had to say. He and Mick, they’d been together for nearly twenty years by this point and they’d been married for the last five. He didn’t want anyone else, even this mysterious stranger that some quirk of destiny thought was better for him than his partner. 

Len did wonder if Mick thought about his mark, his _Heatwave_ , the way that he sometimes dreamed about murdering whoever the hell Mick’s _Captain Cold_ was. He once made up some excuse about some job or another, took a week and broke into the local PD to see if there were any detectives surnamed Cold that might be in danger of getting promoted. When that didn’t pan out, he expanded his search nationally, figuring that a “Captain” could mean police, fire, or armed services. There were a couple of guys and gals out there with that name; he kept an almost obssessive watch on their careers, hustling Mick out of the country on an international job the one time one of them – a Captain in the Air Force – swung by Central to give some sort of talk. 

He never regretted that trip, even if Mick _did_ nearly set fire to a centuries-old monument somewhere in Italy. Still didn’t regret making Mick possibly miss out on his one and only, even now, after the end of it all.

Len thought he was one up on destiny all the way until the job. _That_ job. The one where Mick lost control and everything turned to ash, and Len walked out, unable to take it any more. He walked half the way back to Central, nearly ten miles, before crashing on the side of the road and burying his face in his hands.

Fucking _Heatwave_. 

\--------

Len was doing fine on his own. He still planned his own jobs, same as always; always looking for the next big score, the next interesting heist, the next challenge. Never mind if he sometimes forgot himself and penciled in an unnecessary explosion as a distraction, thinking idly about how much Mick would enjoy setting the charges. Never mind how he wasn’t talking all that much to Lisa any more, either, because he knew she was keeping track of how Mick was doing and she wouldn’t be able to resist asking him about it. He was fine. He just needed a new challenge. Something to distract him.

The arrival of the streak was amazingly well timed. 

He puzzled it over, reaching out through all his contacts to see if there was something new he could use, and in the end one of them comes through. A miserable little rat selling stolen goods on the black market, and he had two guns that look like they came right out of a comic book. Heat and cold. 

And what the hell, why not be a supervillain? Defeating someone trying their best to be a superhero suited his mood right now to a tee. 

He wondered if someone out there had _superhero_ , or maybe _streak_ , as their word. 

He ignored the heat gun.

Len tried out his new cold gun at a crowded theatre, pleased to see that for once everything was working out just as he planned. Once he knew the streak’s weak spot, he knew how to use it. How to finish him off and get back to doing what he did best. 

He was pointing the cold gun at the Flash, feeling bizarrely regretful, when the inevitable team of sidekicks ran in with – was that a _vacuum cleaner_? Seriously? Are they trying to _threaten_ him with that? 

“Your hands are shaking,” Len says, starting to get bored by this. “You’ve never killed anyone.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” the kid replies, voice shaking a little. “ _Captain Cold._ ”

Len pauses. 

Thinks about that. 

Smiles.

Supervillain names. He wouldn’t have called that one. 

He pulled the gun and walked away. 

Can’t be supervillains without a superhero, after all, and he was going to make sure all of Central City knew the names Captain Cold and Heatwave. Even if he had to _personally_ tell everyone what Mick’s nickname was going to be.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Not In The Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12286965) by [Readbyanalise010](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readbyanalise010/pseuds/Readbyanalise010)




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